Epitaphe d'un Coeur Glacial
by Feirdra
Summary: *REVISED & EXPANDED* My theory on how Pietro went from mischievous imp to malicious conniver somewhere between Day of Reckoning and Stuff of Villains, with a twist. Odd Pietro angst.
1. Epitaphe

**Épitaphe**** d'un Coeur Glacial**

-+-

_Qu'est-ce__ qui a le pouvoir_

_De toucher un coeur de glace?_

_Rien__ d'autre que le désespoir_

_Meurtrissant__ fierté, prenant sa place._

_Même__ un âme de fer, tu sais,_

_Tressaillit__ à ce mot_

**_jamais_****__**

****

--

What power is there

That can move an icy heart?

None other than despair

Slaying pride, usurping its part.

Even a soul of steel, remember,

Will waver before that word

**Never**


	2. Coeur Glacial

**Épitaphe**** d'un Coeur Glacial**

-+-

_A giant, smothered in the muffled stillness of sleep. The city stretched out massive and muddily unformed beneath the smoke-hazed sky slumbers peacefully, oblivious in the dim glow of failing streetlamps._

_A scream rips through the silence, inhuman, the shrill whistle of a child's recorder blown too hard. In the faceless brick apartments standing brooding sentinel over the hushed blackened streets, the inhabitants stir, turning uneasily in their sleep._

_The silence returns, ringing with the aftershocks of the cry. Only once._

_He smiles as he strides along the solid angular shadows, whistling tunelessly in rhythm with his own footfalls. His plain shirt seems to have soaked in the shadows, in fact, he seems to have become half-shadow; a darkness darker than all else stains a seemingly perfectly divided side of him, a line of light and shadow running straight down the middle._

_"Silent night… holy night… all is calm… all is bright…" he sings softly under his breath, chuckling to himself as he rounds the corner. The depanneur's glaring neon sign hangs lifeless as a spent ember, gray and clean tubules blending into the windswept emptiness._

_"The boss will like this one, all right." He throws back his silver head, slender soft neck bared to the subtle touch of the stars, and laughs outright. He raises the bundle dangling casually from his hand and smirks companionably as he would to a brother. "Don't you think so, my brand-spankin'-new trophy?"_

_It sways gently back and forth, like a swinging creaky sign over an old tavern, bobbing in agreement on its hanging corded tresses. The bodiless head spirals slowly, slowly around, grinning back with all its gash-mouthed might._

--

A cold, clear night. The moon's crisp pale circle illumines the deep blue sky, brilliant as the dripping bole of an icicle. Spired shapes cut masses of shadows, rustling blackness against midnight, valleys of sapphire undulating smoothly into glittering armfuls of alabaster, cradled in the shaggy perfumed branches.

He wanders among the high, seemingly thin trunks of the towering pines, the forest floor a naked soft plain of untouched white, a simple maze revealed beneath the dense needles clustering overhead.

_Who am I?_

He looks back and smiles to see no trail upon the many-shadowed snow, so light and swift is his tread.

_I am Quicksilver. I am invisible; I leave no trace._

The breeze's icy touch sears like fire, yet the boy standing slender as an arrow in its path is heedless, clad only in shirt and jeans, straight and unnaturally tall in the shifting shadow-laden glow, ethereal as a faery sprite dancing with the will-o'-the-wisps.

_Easy to overlook, easy to underestimate, easy to lose track of.___

Beneath the low-hung tassels of an venerable pine he seats himself, the intangible cold embrace of the snowy carpet barely there to enfold him. He stares off through the trees, at something hidden beyond them.

_I am perfection. I am your son._

Nimble fingers dip into the snow, so pure and solid and smooth is the scintillating surface that gives way instantly, easily with the lightest touch.

A faint smirk touches the thin lips. His is a beautiful face, features chiseled in aquiline crystal. Eyes blue and fathomless deep as the ocean glimmer as the crested waves that catch the light. A dove's downy semblance graces silvery wisps of riffling silk.

Yet the beauty is the beauty of snow and cold cheerless north, a shell covering the chill hollow caverns of his heart, layers of polished hardness telltale memories of the passing of time, a life.

_They don't matter anymore._

They tell of a tender heart isolated and easily molded, childhood denied the right to ache for its loss, never allowed to be in the first place. Aching then for others, for another, his other, till a lesson of pain was learnt and the tears stopped forever. Fading away then, softness of feeling pared away piece by piece till only stony emptiness remained. His heart beats now only for beating.

_'Good work,' you said. _The warmth– the warmth! He remembers it well, wonderfully well. The first such, the very first in so, so very long._ Henceforth I lived for those words, that approving glance._

_I left them far behind. Fools. Fools. I was yours all along._

In the frozen passageways of his soul, his life is frozen, a museum of his past on which his eyes gaze inward in impassive, detached amusement. Three faces, once so warm, so real and close and full of meaning, gaze out blankly from behind the barrier. And another, a ways away. Hers. He chuckles at their incomprehension, her blind fury. They are all only one more misty vestige now. As he turns away contemptuously, the last ties binding his heart are loosened.

For he understands now. Black and white… good and evil… loyalty and betrayal… they are no more than mere concepts. He understands now how the others can believe so blindly in their pretty cotton-candy dreams. It is so easy, almost too easy to believe when one wants to believe.

_Your son._His features harden once again, and he turns on his knees, hands clenching into fists that smash into the tree bark, again and again. Only when the blood runs in slick red rivers between his fingers is he satisfied. _But you don't need a son. You need a soldier._ He smiles savagely down at his bleeding hands. _These hands have been stained forever with the blood of innocents, for you._

_I would do anything. Because I will believe._ The smile vanishes, the dark eyes inky pools of black in the moon-dappled shadows. _For you.__ Sheath my heart in permafrost, for you._

The last, wavering flame burning in those lifeless confines flares suddenly, as a candle before going out. He shivers, and wraps his arms tightly about himself. Suddenly he is so alone, so cold inside and out, he just wants someone to come and be there in the stillness, the empty air. But no one comes. No one ever will.

_Typical._Bitterly, he laughs. The tears hurt more, much more than he does. He falters, before prolonged practice hardens his resolve.

_I hope you'll understand. Maybe, someday, you'll see– the last gift of my heart._

The lingering warmth flickers, dies.

_Father._ It is the last time he will ever know of the word.

For yesterday was Father's Day.

-+-

**Dedication:**

To my paternal grandmother, who died on Father's Day. ;_; Talk about unhappy coincidences.

And now also to Sarah/Absolute Alcohol, Morwen O'Connor, Chiru, Gerri and Ellen for their lovely and at times extensive feedback that made me think.

**A/N:** Pointless, craptacular, incomprehensible Pietro angst. XD Ya gotta love it. My second Evo fic ever.

**Important Info:** And yes, this goes BACK in time from the first part to the second.

**New Notes:** Well, I didn't mean for the new part to be quite so… gruesome, but it just… happened. . I was going over it and I decided it needed something more, because the melodramatism (um, it's a word. Yeah) and description left little room for real clarity as to what was happening to our beloved Quicksilver.

So… hence the headlessness. XD I hoped it helped offset the... ickness of the ending.

**Newer Notes:** Changed the title, hope it doesn't sound quite so horribly corny'n cliché anymore. Swapped the outdated version for a new little snippet of intro. Pietro sadism/angst + bad French poetry. XD Even better, n'est-ce pas?

**And review!**


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